UK Politics: Black Lives Matter Here Too

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

It seems to me that the break up of the old party alliances of the 20th Century is one of the bigger political stories of the 21st Century. And it isn't just a phenomena that is particular to the UK. But, seems to be happening in many places. The education gap for instance seems to be an issue both in the United States and the UK.

It's happening across the West.  

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, SeanF said:

It's not so much an explanation of economic growth, so much as the way countries are founded.  Basically, on Iron and Blood.

I wouldn't remove statues of Bismarck.  He was a great, if flawed, man.

Don't disagree. Every country's history is pretty ugly. But, I wouldn't remove statues of Bismark, Frederick The Great, or Queen Nzinga.

[SeanF]

23 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Clearly the world has changed, as it should have done. Such statues are indefensible outside a museum. I’ll shed no tears about Colston’s while still defending the utmost importance of the rule of law.
 

However, we need to keep our eyes on the prize, and not further the damaging division we see in the US. A lot of people have pride in their country as their prime motivation. Pissing them off leads to that division. So, for instance, remove Colston and Rhodes, replace them with memorials to the black lives lost in the slave trade, but also memorialise the West African Squadron that lost thousands of lives preventing the slave trade, memorialise abolitionists. If you only want to make people ashamed of their country, you are asking for massive trouble.

I wouldn't remove Rhodes.  He was a man of his time.  He was an imperialist, but also a Liberal, and a supporter of Irish Home Rule (positions that were not incompatible with each other in the late 19th century).

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Yes.

QED.

I can't quite frankly name one area in which he could've performed worse, even if he tried.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

QED.

I can't quite frankly name one area in which he could've performed worse, even if he tried.

Brexit.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Brexit.

Not really.

He would've returned with no deal, just that he would've given you lot a final chance to hit the abort button. (that was the brexit policy of Labour I guess?).

Now, you just get no deal. And off you pop.

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Don't disagree. Every country's history is pretty ugly. But, I wouldn't remove statues of Bismark, Frederick The Great, or Queen Nzinga.

Every country's history is ugly, but absolutely fascinating, IMHO.  I think it's possible to warm to historical figures while still recognising their very great flaws.  

[Hereward]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

I wouldn't remove Rhodes.  He was a man of his time.  He was an imperialist, but also a Liberal, and a supporter of Irish Home Rule.

At this point, I’m not sure it matters. Liberals were enthusiastic imperialists too, frequently more so than conservatives on the basis of religion and “civilisation”, which in many cases was based on opposition to the acceptance of slavery in native societies. 
 

NB Not by choice, I’m currently a West Africa specialist, and slavery is, as it has always been, a widespread and accepted fact of life, even today.

[Hereward]

7 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

QED.

I can't quite frankly name one area in which he could've performed worse, even if he tried.

Then you lack imagination.

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, Hereward said:

At this point, I’m not sure it matters. Liberals were enthusiastic imperialists too, frequently more so than conservatives on the basis of religion and “civilisation”, which in many cases was based on opposition to the acceptance of slavery in native societies. 
 

NB Not by choice, I’m currently a West Africa specialist, and slavery is, as it has always been, a widespread and accepted fact of life, even today.

Hence, you get nuttery like Adonis wanting to remove statues of Gladstone.  History did not begin in 2000.

[Hereward]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

Hence, you get nuttery like Adonis wanting to remove statues of Gladstone.  History did not begin in 2000.

Heretic!

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Then you lack imagination.

Admittedly. I also lacked the imagination of any goverment displaying the amount of incompetence displayed by the UK and the US. I quite literally couldn't make that up.

But maybe you are willing to share your rich imagination of the horrors a PM Corbyn would've displayed during Corona and Brexit talks? I mean, yes, Corbyn is an incompetent politician and fool. But for any goverment to be as bad as this lot.

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Heretic!

Gladstone has to be condemned because his father was a slave owner.   Or something.

[Hereward]

Just now, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Admittedly. I also lacked the imagination of any goverment displaying the amount of incompetence displayed by the UK and the US. I quite literally couldn't make that up.

But maybe you are willing to share your rich imagination of the horrors a PM Corbyn would've displayed during Corona and Brexit talks? I mean, yes, Corbyn is an incompetent politician and fool. But for any goverment to be as bad as this lot.

Corbyn had all the faults of Johnson in his organisational abilities, plus he shared Johnson’s views on the EU, plus he wanted to abolish the UK military, plus he is an enthusiastic supporter of Putin and all that entails. 

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Corbyn had all the faults of Johnson in his organisational abilities, plus he shared Johnson’s views on the EU, plus he wanted to abolish the UK military, plus he is an enthusiastic supporter of Putin and all that entails. 

And friendly to anti-semites.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

A massive focus on getting rid of the Rhodes statue at Oxford that’s been going on for a while demonstrates that this is an issue that concerns mostly ...university students who go to Oxford.

The logic here is, forgive me, absolutely hilarious. The statue is in Oxford, and that shows that the issue concerns mostly Oxford students? Do you really think that follows?

44 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Such statues are indefensible outside a museum.

I've seen this a lot, but honestly, why would they even be defensible in a museum? I go to a lot of museums, but I can't say I've ever seen one that wou;d have been improved by a statue of a rich slave owner.

But anyway. It seems to me that this was, objectively, a pretty minor incident. The only reason anybody cares about it, for or against, is the symbolism, as I think we all can agree. On the one hand, the symbolism of having a public commemoration of a slave owner is pretty clear: any reasonable person can surely understand that that's an oppressive thing for any descendant of a slave to see. On the other hand, the symbolism of tearing down public statuary during a demonstration and the connotations of lawlessness make some people uncomfortable. Which I can understand.

But, tough luck. Because the fact is that to achieve meaningful change, you will get nowhere by polite petitions alone, just as you'll get nowhere by direct action alone. You need both. You need demonstrations of impatience and passion and depth of feeling just as much as you need debate and discussion. This was an occasion for the former, IMO. Yes, there has been change, but in recent years it has been glacially slow, and racism is - and this is a fact - on the rise. The Prime Minister is a man who has published and used racist language and has not apologised for either. Some of his MPs have similar records. Racist assaults are rising. It's not enough, just now, to be polite and pat ourselves on the back about the progress we've all made. We need something with a bit more impact.

[Hereward]

3 minutes ago, mormont said:

I've seen this a lot, but honestly, why would they even be defensible in a museum? I go to a lot of museums, but I can't say I've ever seen one that wou;d have been improved by a statue of a rich slave owner.

You don’t think placing it in a museum, where his appalling activities could be explained in the context of history, is acceptable? Presumably, then, the exhibits on Hitler and Goebbels should be removed from the Berlin Holocaust museum.

[polishgenius]

35 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Gladstone has to be condemned because his father was a slave owner.   Or something.

Gladstone's father was a slave owner which led to Gladstone himself being anti-abolitionist so his dad wouldn't lose his slaves and, when that failed, was supposedly involved in getting his dad the biggest payout for it. Yeah he obviously did and supported a lot of good but let's not pretend he was spotless.

[TrueMetis]

35 minutes ago, Hereward said:

You don’t think placing it in a museum, where his appalling activities could be explained in the context of history, is acceptable? Presumably, then, the exhibits on Hitler and Goebbels should be removed from the Berlin Holocaust museum.

Do the Hitler and Goebbels exhibits in the Berlin Holocaust Museum include statues that were meant to glorify them? Because those probably should be removed yes. Like maybe the museum in Berlin is different, but I've been to the Canadian War Museum a couple of times, and we've got a lot of stuff there, old equipment, Nazi stuff taken by our soldiers as trophies, including one of Hitler's cars. Not one of the things I remember seeing there was "statue of Hitler originally created to show how awesome he was". That be fucked up, and it would be bad enough if it was like the car, something we stole cause fuck the Nazis, it be really fucked up if it was a statue created decades after the man died.

[Hereward]

1 minute ago, TrueMetis said:

Do the Hitler and Goebbels exhibits in the Berlin Holocaust Museum include statues that were meant to glorify them? Because those probably should be removed yes. Like maybe the museum in Berlin is different, but I've been to the Canadian War Museum a couple of times, and we've got a lot of stuff there, old equipment, Nazi stuff taken by our soldiers as trophies, including one of Hitler's cars. Not one of the things I remember seeing there was "statue of Hitler originally created to show how awesome he was". That be fucked up, and it would be bad enough if it was like the car, something we stole cause fuck the Nazis, it be really fucked up if it was a statue created decades after the man died.

What? Are there any statues not intended to glorify? Should we not mention the Nuremberg rallies as an example of dangerous propaganda because they were intended to glorify? Should we not mention, and condemn, the statues of US civil war heroes placed in multiracial areas of the south of the US as an act of intimidation because of what those who erected them wanted to achieve? That’s fucking insane.